Spill the Beans!

Coffee's longevity benefits confirmed

Researchers from around the world collaborated and provided 20-30 years of follow up in a cohort study which aimed to see if drinking coffee was associated with mortality rates.

The Harvard School of Health, Bringham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Indiana University, the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, and the National University of Singapore partnered to learn more about coffee.

Together, they analyzed data from three large studies that focused on coffee consumption and health. The three studies were the Nurses' Health Study (74,890 women), the Nurses' Health Study II (93,054 women), and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (40,557 men). These studies started in the 1970's and 80's and ended in 2012.

After the follow up and analyzing, the new team of researchers "were able to provide solid evidence for the association between coffee drinking and the risk of mortality" according to Dr. Ming Ding of the Harvard School of Public Health.

The findings from the new study echo those of Neal D. Freedman, Ph.D., a lead researcher in a previous coffee-mortality study. He said his research also found coffee consumption to be associated with lower risk of death overall and of death from a number of different causes.

Because both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee confer benefits, it is believed that the bioflavonoids and other substances in the beans may be responsible for the positive effects on overall wellness.